December 13, 2012 7:14 am

Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch (24) runs against the Arizona Cardinals during the second quarter of an NFL football game in Seattle, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

In my story today, Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch passed on the opportunity to talk about what it will be like to face the teams that traded him away three years ago.

“I’m good, boss,” he said.

But others were more than willing to discuss the impact Lynch has had on the team since joining Seattle in a midseason trade from Buffalo in October 2010.

In over two seasons and 40 games with Seattle, Lynch has rushed for over 3,000 yards (3,043) yards and 27 touchdowns, giving Carroll the workhorse running back he desired. The only backs that have more during that period or Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson and Baltimore’s Ray Rice and Houston’s Arian Foster.

“I don’t know if anything is more symbolic than what we’ve done with Marshawn and him playing the way he’s played, and him being the guy he is,” Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said. “I think he really is the key element to putting this thing together.”

Art Thiel of Sportspressnw.com notes that the Seahawks will start just one player over 30 years old, defensive end Chris Clemons (31), when they face Buffalo on Sunday.

Jerry Sullivan of the Buffalo News writes that it doesn’t makes sense that Buffalo traded for former Seattle quarterback Tarvaris Jackson for him only to hold a clip board as the team’s third-string quarterback.

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Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

Feeds

As important as Thomas is to the defense, Lynch is the heart and soul of this whole team, IMO. His extraordinary effort, on every single carry, feels almost routine now. Which is remarkable considering how much punishment he takes (and dishes out, of course…).

I’d love to see Lynch have a 125-yard game against his former team. This is a must-win game for the Seahawks if they have any hopes of getting a home playoff game and a good day for Lynch will help Wilson considerably.

Turbin is a very physical runner, who, from what I’ve seen, will not go to the ground without a fight himself. No “Lynch clone” of course, but a very promising and so far productive compliment to Bees Mo. And, like Lynch, he’s an efffective receiver out of the backfield.

Don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but I have been trolling the National media just to see what people are saying about us here in the great northwest. Surprising, but there is alot of attention towards us out there. Football outsiders has us ranked as the #2 team in the NFL, and, this is an absolute must read from SI. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20121211/russell-wilson-seahawks-super-bowl-contenders/. I have never looked forward to watching this team as much as I have this year. IMO, I don’t think a trip to New Orleans in Feb is too far fetched.

Lynch is the type of player I like to hold up to the Bantam Football team (13-14 year olds) I coach. Here’s a guy who has it made. He got the big contract. He is set for life. But he doesn’t shut it down and fall to the turf at the mere breeze of a defender running towards him (cough, Shaun Alexander, cough).

There was talk giving him the big payday would backfire ala Chris Johnson. On the contrary, Lynch is having the best season of his career. It’s almost as if he wants to reward Seattle for its faith they have put in him.

Oh, and yes I’m not supposed to be posting until the end of the season, but with the new pay for view (I will be paying because the TNT is also my major source of local news about my home state), I needed to break radio silence and say goodbye to all that are making the hard choice not to continue here.

It’s been fun. We didn’t always agree. There were times when our passion may have gotten the best of us (um, me for instance). But I consider everyone on here brothers and sisters (shout out to Danielle) in this big Seahawks family.

Chuck, If the Seahawks keep getting better there won’t be much more to fight about around here. Perhaps we could argue about who’s the best assistant coach or scout, and we always have the refs to pick on. Lol.

Obviously you are still wearing those team issued Rose Coloured Glasses.

I’ve been a fan since 1976 and there is ALWAYS something to argue about! It’s part of our birth right as Seahawk fans.

So, it’s being said the team is breaking out the ‘wolf greys’ on Sunday.

Sure wish they would have worn them at home for the first time, but it will be nice to see them. I already love the grey pants being worn with the away jersey. Would love for them to start getting all Oregon Ducks and mixing and matching colour schemes to cause retinal damage to those of us with HD TVs.

I was explaining to my son last night how Shaun was fundamentally different from Marshawn.

Essentially, Shaun needed his offensive line, because he was very good at exploiting holes. If there was a hole, he’d often get 15-25 yards. Conversely, if there was no hole, he was losing yardage most of the time. Shaun had very fluid hips and once he got up to speed, was hard to tackle.

Conversely, Marshawn doesn’t need holes. If there’s no hole, he’ll grind out a few yards, and occasionally he’ll take the pile six to eight yards downfield with the help of the offensive line pushing the pile. If there’s a hole, he’ll get a lot more yardage, but it’s rare that he gets more than 20 yards in a carry, because his straight line speed isn’t all that impressive… he gets long yardage because he breaks tackles, not because he avoids contact.

For this offensive line, Marshawn is by far the superior back. On the other hand, if the offensive line was opening holes regularly, Marshawn wouldn’t be the right choice, he’s not fast enough, and so the linebackers and safeties responding to the hole would often catch him where Shaun would have made it through and past, giving them bad tackling angles.

Yes. Toronto was pushing hard to land the Bills on a permanent basis. I could easily see an NFL team moving there.

The NFL must stay out of Vancouver, though they have tried in the past. Only a 2 1/2 hour drive north from Seattle. But it would be nice to see a more local rivalry.

Duke, I have decided I can now safely post as Wilson is no longer causing me panic attacks, heart palpitations and periods of uncontrolled (and uncencored profinity laced according to my family) screaming at the television set.

He’s gone from being the weak link in the offence to being one of the keys in a much shorter timeframe than I could have hoped for. I expecte to have to wait for this production until next year. Play-offs or not it is a fun ride every weekend without having to avert my eyes and cover my impressionable family’s ears every time Seattle is on offense.

The clincher was when his team mates began talking him up and saying how he worked his way into the role. He didn’t demand it, he didn’t shy away from it, he proved he deserved it.

Its fun coming here. I am typically not super active in conversations but I do come here to read the comments just about every day. If it costs $10 a month to come here I wont be coming here anymore either. It is more about value and I don’t see the value in that.

I am not a subscriber to ESPN insider either because I don’t perceive the value in that either. I know they do some great articles there but there are so many other places that those same types of articles are available for free.

It truly is a shame but I understand the News Tribune needs to remain profitable in order to stay in business but if they were smart they would use advertisements on these blog pages to keep the business profitable (like facebook and others).

I work in Advertising and have often wondered why the Trib wasn’t capitalizing on all the traffic with web ads in the sidebars? That way it wouldn’t cost the bloggers who dedicate so much time here a dime (other than if they were to click on those web ads).

I don’t get it. I don’t pay for any on-line subscriptions. None whatsoever.

This has been my favorite site for Hawk info, but charge me and I’ll be gone too.

I say get a sales team or one salesperson and find some local businesses that want to capitalize on the traffic. Charge them, not us.

pdway, there’s absolutely nothing new at that link, and the article at that link has a reference to a Yahoo article that seems to indicate there’s something new at the Yahoo article, and there isn’t there, either.

It’s been known for at least a couple of days now that Sherman hired a lawyer, and that the hearing on the 14th will be postponed.

There is no news beyond that, and I think the NFP article is bogus, and bad journalism.

I don’t see why anyone would pay $120 for access to a blog when there are plenty of free ones. I have been on this site for ten years so I am sad to see it go because some executives need more money to cover the price of a fifth vacation home.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and an even better January(Playoffs) if we make it. See you on some other blog.

Who you trying to kid Chuck you weren’t posting but you were reading. I’m sure some of those same uncensored comments were coming out while perusing the blog. I also have driven everybody out of the house a couple times for brunch due to some “colorful language” while watching a Seahawks game.

I’m guessing looking at the number of responses from the various polls Eric has put up over the years, I’d say we have somewhere between 600-800 readers of this blog many posting infrequently, obviously, or just lurking and reading like I started out doing.

Did the writer fromm Sports Illustrated not see the Hawks blow their third 4th quarter lead this season? Two weeks ago this team was 6-5 and had just lost to the Dolphins and while they have had some fine moments this year I am not sure I am ready to be as optimistic as the writer is.
Its probably just because I have been a Seattle sports fan for so long that any optimism has been beaten out of me.

I’m sorry, on one level, I do like the idea of expanding the playoffs… if there were 14 teams, and only the #1 seed had a first week bye, you’d see a lot more intrigue over who was the #1 and #2; and if there were 16 teams, no one would have a bye which would probably be fairer, if the #1 plays the #8, it’s a pretty big reward anyway.

That said, you can’t advocate for 18 game regular season, and expanded playoffs, and claim you are for player safety. That’s just ridiculous. Many teams with 16 game regular season and no playoff games are limping in around week 14 or week 15 right now!

Rog, how about mandating that everyone wear mouthguards? To me, that’s a total no brainer.

@Pugethawk. Can’t say I blame you, but at the very least, it does seem we are getting hot at the right time, and RW keeps getting better every game. I’m going to go ahead at this point and jump on the bandwagon. After all, I’m a Mariner’s fan too, so what’s one more disappointment?

there are quite a few Audible, the difference being as a group we could put our mark on it and work together to make it a great blog. there are quite a few in here that could write and contribute some quality stuff. there is also a former blogger from alaska we might be able to lure back. mike over at Seahawk Addicts has had health problems and other issues that have kept him from posting regularly. again i think in would take contributions from a lot of us to make it work but it could be a great site again.

God in Heaven Hawkfaninoklahoma, I really hope you arent talking about the blogger from Alaska I think you are…the guy who insisted his writing was above reproach because his wife taught English..yet his arguments were often illogical and his grammar execrable; never mind that he was often dead wrong and never owned up to it…. I never understood how that guy built a cult of ditto-heads who loved every run-on, nonsensical sentence he wrote.

I’d rather read an article by RADEoN, ACIB, or any one of the guys on this blog I have regularly disagreed with.

I really don’t care about any of the TNT stuff except for the Seahawks Insider. I wish there was a way to pay a few bucks a month (or once per year) for that instead.

If we all went somewhere, that’d be cool/fine, but not the same. Half of why I love this blog is the commraderie that some us have.

But the other half, and just as important, is having Eric with his “inside” information. I like being able to have him ask Mr. Happy a question for me and getting an answer back (or some of the players). Those are things you can’t replace on a fan blog if we were to go somewhere. None of us have access to that information. The only thing that comes close is when we have some of you going to the training camp practices and telling us what you saw. I really like that too.

What’s going to happen here? I don’t know. But it kind of sucks thinking that, to a degree, it could be the end of an era.

I’ve never been a guy to follow any blog. This is the only one for me and I don’t want to really “mesh” with new people on “their” blog.

I’m just getting over a nasty bit of the flu so I’ll have to check out the facebook page a little more… we’ll see…

Let’s not get too over confident here guys. Remember we are still a team that has won only TWO road games all year. We’re playing a Bills team that has the capability of putting up points. And our defense has not been terribly stellar over the past 5 games (Cardinals aside).

This game will go a LONG ways towards judging how well we are maturing as a team. Be cautious. Be concerned. And most of all be thankful we’re indoors, on turf.

“Half of why I love this blog is the commraderie that some us have.
But the other half, and just as important, is having Eric with his “inside” information. I like being able to have him ask Mr. Happy a question for me and getting an answer back (or some of the players). Those are things you can’t replace on a fan blog if we were to go somewhere. None of us have access to that information. The only thing that comes close is when we have some of you going to the training camp practices and telling us what you saw. I really like that too.”

yep +1

For those of us who no longer live in the Seattle area, it’s been really great to have people interested in talking Seahawks football to trade opinions and observations with over these years.

My feeling is that charging for content on what I see as a local news outlet is an exercise in futility. Perhaps TNT does have a major national audience, but I feel that out-of-region viewers are bonus viewers. I don’t think there’s much revenue to be had from that source.

Unfortunately for fans of this blog, the sport department is probably one of the few departments that does have some out of region appeal (for out of area fans.) But I’m still skeptical about the revenue potential there.

I like how the same people who call this blog “theirs” are often rude and dismissive to anyone who slightly disagrees with them. Did anyone ever stop and think that traffic is wayyyy down because people got tired of coming to a blog that was controlled by a handful of socially backward, know-it-all-but-really-don’t, internet genius jerks??? If I wanted to see a bunch of rude, moronic, dipsh1ts tell each other why they are right and everyone else is wrong, I’d go to a city council meeting. God forbid you might have to conversate with NEW people on THEIR blog. I wonder how new people that come to this blog feel?
And if $10 to support the business that you supposedly “love” is too much, then screw off. Maybe you’ll not buy that 12-pack and use the $ to keep the “era” going. Some of these posts…It’s like watching a crazy person argue with themselves.

P.S. – You’ll notice I did not use ANYONE’S name? If you feel personally attacked in some way….then your the reason the blog is no longer free.

MattandCindy – That’s one of the problems I have with the “let’s all go over there…” mentality. We’re all supposed to, in mass, jump on another blog and push our collective weight around, or some such? The idea of it, or at least the way it has been presented, seems as rude as some of the dialogue that has taken place here, this season. Anyway, just my opinion.

Duke the whole point i made about the blog in question was that there is really no one there… that means we don’t have to push our weight around it would effectively be ours to help run and contribute. you have one guy writing that has health problems and needs help. my skill set is not in writing i figure you and a select few others could help with that. i am more than willing to split duties thou finding articles on the web to post for morning links.
although i guess i could pay the ten monthly and just tell the others that won’t or can’t to piss off. personally i like the group here even if we fight, bicker and bitch like old women at each other at times. this is a great group of people here and all i was trying to do was find a way to keep us all together.
again duke this a great option for us if people are willing to contribute and help make it a great blog again.

“Dukeshire- I don’t think you really understood what MattandCindy was saying. Think about it.”

I understood it. Classic passive aggressiveness douchiness if you ask me. Accusing others of being rude and insulting, while being extremely insulting itself, but cloaking that quality in the supposed invisibility of not naming names.

I think the logic is off-base too, as there were usually more posts than ever when certain commenters took extreme positions, etc., but it’s not like any of us know TNT’s economics.

Georgia…if it were up to the league, Green Bay, Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, Washington, Philly, and the Giants would be automatic playoff bids and everyone else would be fighting for the 8th spot. In the AFC it would be NE, Pitt, Baltimore, Indy, whoever Peyton is playing for, and 3 other teams looking to get beat down in the playoffs. Maybe San Diego can step up since they never win a playoff game.

Bobbyk–I like Eric, I really like him, and his writing and his patience. But the so-called Insider Information?! Give me a break! Since when has ANYTHING been posted here that wasnt found elsewhere? The Trib NEVER posts anything Clare Farnsworth doesnt, and Farnsworth is now a kept man.

The only thing Ive heard that was newsworthy here was Divish or someone letting the cat out of the bag that Clemons was a total jackwagon POC to the reporters and anyone else, including his (now ex) wife.

Eric is a fine moderator. Seahawkaddicts used to be better than this blog has ever been–and wasnt dominated by a few guys with cult followings of dittoheads, either. It could be that way again. But not if folks fight about it.

A community needs a leader or two, but a community is made up of the people who form it; an ammount greater than the sum of its parts.

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